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Newt's Best Debate Moments

RUSH: Last night Sioux City, Iowa, live on the Fox News Channel, the Republican candidates debated for the last time before the Hawkeye Cauci on January 3rd. This is one of Newt's moments. Bret Baier: "In a Gingrich administration, would the United States leave the United Nations?"

GINGRICH: No, but we would dramatically reduce our reliance on it, and we'd confront certain realities. People talk about a peace process. Eleven missiles were fired into Israel last month. Last month! Over 200 missiles have been fired into Israel this year. Do you think if we had 11 millions fired into the United States we'd...? With this president he might say, "Well, gee, maybe we could communicate and you could like us more," but I don't think there's...

AUDIENCE: (laughter)

GINGRICH: I think most of us, most Americans would say, "You know, if you're firing missiles at me, that may not be a very good gesture, okay?"

AUDIENCE: (laughter)

GINGRICH: The United Nations camps that we have helped fund have been training grounds for terrorism. We have no obligation to lie and every obligation to tell the truth about how bad the UN bureaucracy is and why it ought to be fixed or we ought to radically cut what we're paying.

RUSH: Now, the applause was through the roof. We've cut the applause here for time, not for any editorial reason. We just cut the applause for time. But it went through the roof. Another Newt moment was this. Megyn Kelly. She handled the legal questions last night. "Speaker Gingrich, you have proposed a plan to subpoena judges to testify before Congress about controversial decisions that they make. In certain cases you advocate impeaching judges or abolishing the courts altogether. Two conservative former attorneys general have criticized your plan saying it alters the checks and balances of the three branches of government and they used words like 'dangerous, outrageous, totally irresponsible.' Are they wrong?"

GINGRICH: The courts have become grotesquely dictatorial, far too powerful -- and I think, frankly, arrogant in their misreading of the American people. There's an entire paper ate Newt.org. I've been working on project since 2002 when the Ninth Circuit court said that "one nation under God" is unconstitutional in the Pledge of Allegiance, and I decided: If you had judges who are so radically anti-American that they thought "one nation under God" was wrong, they shouldn't be on the court.

RUSH: That also brought people out of their seats last night. There were a lot of moments like that, and it was an uplifting debate throughout whole time. The attitude, mood of the whole night was productive and good. You know, people don't understand the courts, the separation of powers in Congress. Congress can do anything they want with their powers. Congress can totally redistrict the United States courts. Who set up the court system, do you think? Do you think that Oliver Wendell Holmes sat down one day and said, "You know what? This is gonna be the Ninth Circuit, and over here is gonna be the DC Circuit. Over here here is gonna be the Fourth Circuit."

That is not how it happened. Congress did it. If Congress wanted to split the Ninth Circus -- make it smaller, make fewer people subject to it -- they could. If they had the votes, if the president goes along with it. The Founding Fathers really did not want an imperial judiciary. They did not want what we've got. They did not want judges and bureaucrats writing law. The people are not represented when that starts happening. There is no representative republic. The Founding Fathers had no intention that the final word on law or anything else be nine people wearing robes. That was not the intent. It's where we have evolved -- in fact, not just with legal issues. How many political issues now end up at the court and whatever the Supreme Court verdict is is the final word and authority on a political issue like abortion?

Sorry, that was not the intent. Judges can be impeached. Now, it is a bit radical to bring 'em in and start making 'em explain their decisions. It's tempting. (laughing) Some, but... Well, Alcee Hastings. You can impeach 'em. Then they run for Congress after that. But there is a way of dealing with this. Most people, particularly people who are under 50, with peripheral knowledge of the court system and the Constitution have grown up believing that what happens when a judge bangs a gavel, is it. That's it! There's nowhere else you can go. Once you have gone to the last court that will hear your case, that's it. That was never intended, particularly when it comes to legal issues. But with the left, politicizing all the judgeships as they can and putting unelectable people on courts, that's where it all started transforming.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I want you to hear a Newt bite here on the Keystone pipeline from the debate last night. The question came from Neil Cavuto: "Speaker Gingrich, as you know, the president has rejected any effort to tie a payroll tax extension with the Keystone pipeline and to reopen it and to explore reopening it as well. He said, 'Any other way to connect the two would be akin to adding an extraneous issue.' Given his opposition, it looks like the Keystone issue could be up in the air for a year or more. How do you recommend Republicans deal with this to force the issue?"

GINGRICH: You know, Neil, I sometimes get accused of using language that's too strong. So I've been standing here editing.

AUDIENCE: (laughter)

GINGRICH: I'm very concerned about not appearing to be "zany," and ...

AUDIENCE: (laughter)

GINGRICH: I'm using mild words here: It's utterly irrational to say, "I'm now gonna veto a middle-class tax cut to protect left-wing environmentalist extremists in San Francisco. So we're gonna kill American jobs, weaken American energy, make us more vulnerable to the Iranians and do so in a way that makes no sense to any normal, rational American."

AUDIENCE: (applause)

RUSH: We've cut the applause, but it went on and on and on. Every one of these people -- except for Ron Paul; he didn't have a good night last night; he had his moments of applause, but everybody -- on that stage last night had similar moments to this.